CAIRO: Army forces took control of ballot boxes in Shoubra, part of the first constituency, after head of the judicial committee supervising elections there decided to postpone a counting process marred by chaos and lack of regulation.
Members of the judicial committee and employees resumed the counting process by 11:30 am on Wednesday.
The previous night, army forces had fired shots in the air when candidates’ representatives and employees ignored a decision to disperse.
"There are more than 2,500 employees supervising the counting along with the judges and the candidates’ representatives in a relatively small place, which would surely lead to chaos," Tarek Hamed, a teacher supervising the counting at Galal Fahmy School, told Daily News Egypt.
Fahmy said the disturbance began after a rumor spread that employees supervising the elections and counting would only receive LE 150 as a bonus.
"Employees then demanded counting be stopped. I went to Councilor Moataz Khafagy, head of the judicial committee, who called Councilor Abdel Moez Ibrahim, head of the SEC [Supreme Electoral Commission], to inform him about the problem," he added.
Fahmy said Ibrahim directly decided to increase the bonuses to LE 800, after which “employees agreed to continue the counting.”
When counted resumed, Councilor Khafagy suddenly threatened to defer the counting if calmness did not return. "He asked one of the personnel of the military police to secure the counting committee. The soldier then fired shots in the air," Fahmy said.
Ismail Salah, representative of the Salafi Al-Nour Party, told DNE that the logistics of the counting process were a mess to begin with.
"They allocated a small place for counting the results of more than 2,000 boxes with the presence of 5,000 people," he said.
Fahmy and Salah confirmed that the boxes, delivered to military police, were left with one judge inside the counting committee and that the army, police and employees secured the school from the outside.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Bayoumi, another representative of Al-Nour Party, said chaos ensued as a result of a number of judges and employees who fainted, exhausted from the long electoral process.
"This lead Councilor Khafagy to postpone the counting to the morning," he said.
Employees and candidates’ representatives stressed that there was a deal with the office at the police station to resume the counting process at 9 am in the presence of a fewer number of representatives to restore order.
